Die-cast collecting is international – not only in scope, but in subject matter. Leave it to Tomica of Japan to make the nicest three-inch model of a German car built in the United States that’s ever come from their Chinese factory.

That’s saying something: Hot Wheels, Matchbox, Majorette and others have all tried their hand at what many believe is the definitive GTI. But really, only Tomica has nailed it. C’mon, look at that picture. You’d never guess that this car measured three inches long.

This A2-generation Golf GTI 16V, launched a month ago in a somber choice of black or gunmetal gray as part of Tomica’s Limited Vintage Neo collection, is the best you’ll find, period. Body and chassis are both metal (the chassis painted black with muffler detail picked out in silver), and the soft tires on prototypical wheels both roll and offer genuine suspension. Headlamps and taillamps are all separate pieces. The interior is molded in color – gray – although the “up” door glass renders the detail harder to see. All that’s missing, as far as we’re concerned, are door mirrors. Even so, it makes the other companies’ older efforts look misshapen and toyish.

Cost? We found ours for 1,170 yen; that’s around $15 before shipping. Check around for availability, or you can do what we did and go to AmiAmi.com; despite their location in Japan, their English-language site is perfectly understandable and easy to navigate – just type Tomica Golf in their search bar, and you’re there.

Where’s the radio antenna? The lump at the rear of the left front fender is where the other Golfs had their antennas, at least on US-market cars. And why doesn’t it have the special 16-V wheels? They have circular holes just inside the rim, with adjacent shallow depressions like a teardrop shape. I have my ’87 GTI 16V out back, and I have several sets of the proper alloy wheels (I owned another GTI 16V at one time, and bought another set of wheels separately). The grooves for the door openings look like they’d scale several times larger than the real ones (dead giveaway that this is NOT a real car, unless it has been “repaired” by someone who thinks that more Bondo is better). Is this supposed to represent a non-US version of the car? If so, what year, and what market? The Euro lighting that I’ve seen didn’t have all four headlights at the same height.

NIce pictures of the Tomica. I have quite a few of these that I brought back from Japan, but I must say, I like this one a lot. It was available when I was there, but I will have to get some friends to look out for one for me.